(The following posts were published on my now defunct blog "The Disbeliever.")
Game Language
I've recently noticed the proliferation of the phrase "game the system." Where I have encountered it, this phrase is typically employed to describe the misuse of social and government systems.
Please regard this most recent usage: "Mr. Castellani voiced strong support for the accountability principles underlying the original law and warned that the draft would allow too many schools to “game the system” by hiding the records of underachieving student," editorial, New York Times; 12 September.
Also:"Some way or other, we all pay the price for Family and Medical Leave Act abuses...For workers, misuse contributes to unwanted overtime, loss of vacation time and ultimately low employee morale. No one wants to cover for co-workers who game the system for an extra day off," ForbesMagazine; 9 September.
And:"We're concerned that it may provide too many opportunities for schools to game the system and obscure the fact that students are not progressing toward reading and doing math at grade level," attributed to Arthur Rothkopf, a senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, San Francisco Chronicle; 9 September.
According to Dictionary.com, the American Heritage Dictionary doesn't recognize the use of "game" as a verb. But, it does list ten different uses of the word as a noun, in addition to adjectival and adverbial variants.
The OED does list "game" as a verb, primarily connoting amusement. The definition of "game" most applicable to the phrase in question--and even this takes some amount of mental calisthenics--is the third the intransitive one, derived from gambling, which is, at best, marginally useful.
The most suitable definition I could find during a fairly extensive search, was on the Wikitruth site: "Gaming the System means, simply, using the rules, policies and procedures of a system against itself for purposes outside what these rules were intended for." But even this falls short of providing adequate understanding of the intended usage in the quotes listed above. As deployed there, "game the system" is used to imply the exploitation of loopholes in a given code, allowing individuals to take unfair advantage of services and privileges. These advantages do not necessarily lie outside of the intended usage of the code. Instead, they represent unforeseen flaws, which are then utilized by the wily and informed to gain an advantage. Some find this disturbing rather than cunning.
The Chronicle piece provides an interesting and unassuming gloss of "game the system":" [U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret] Spellings and business groups warn that it could create a confusing new accountability system for parents, which might allow some states or individual schools to rig the results," (emphasis added). Considering this, the parlor etymology of the phrase is less a chance than a sure bet.
I've forwarded this inquiry to William Safire, the NYTime's resident militant-grammarian. I'm doubting he'll give it more than a passing glance, but it would be edifying and entertaining to better understand the etymological roots of the phrase, especially it's nascence as accepted usage.
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Tuesday, August 7, 2007
The Outdoor Retailer Show's Outdoor Demo DayWhat follows are quotes from my notebook after a day spent at the "Open Air Demo" portion of the Outdoor Retailer Trade Show. Some holes are filled by the notes, but a little supplementary info is probably necessary.
The "OR," as it is lovingly referred to by industry insiders, is held biannually. It is an industry exclusive event, and the consuming public cannot attend. The OR is owned by Nielsen Company, which was originally a Dutch media conglomerate called "Verenigde Nederlandse Uitgeversbedrijven, which translates into as "United Dutch Publishing Companies" (wikipedia). You are probably most familiar with the company's music sales tracking division called Nielsen SoundScan. It also owns a marketing firm (ACNielsen), and several entertainment industry magazines (Billboard, Kirkus Reviews) and the Clio Awards, an advertising and design award show.
I was told by a representative from Sierra Designs that the OR recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. The OR will be in Salt Lake until 2010.
The Open Air Demo took place at Pineview Reservoir in Huntsville, Utah. It was mainly a man-powered water-craft exhibition. Every imaginable iteration of canoe, kayak, and paddle-board was available for personal demonstration.
There were also shoes, sunglasses, fans, socks, grills, hammocks, tents, coolers, backpacks, a DJ spinning an eclectic mix of adult favorites, trucks, swag, molded polymers whose intended use was unidentifiable without explanation and demonstration, and beer available at the giant Coleman truck parked at the entrance to the demo itself. The lady with the doubly pierced lip and a hoop through each nostril was kind enough to offer me three 16 oz cans of beer which I gladly accepted and for which I tipped a dollar each. She was excited beyond description with her job: I can't blame her.
THE NOTES
~Sandals appear to be the footwear of choice, though they are removed once people realize the difficulty of walking across medium-coarse sand at a severe cant in strong winds.
~A tent belonging to a kayak demonstrator was uprooted by the wind and blown crashing into a sock display and tent. A woman in a red swimsuit hurled herself bodily out of what she assumed was the course of the tent. An inordinate number of shirtless men ran with determination to remedy the collision.
~It's almost a rule-of-engagement that given such a situation more men than are possibly necessary think themselves so and come sprinting to assistance.
~Even the men have shaved legs, most bicyclists of some brand or else serious endurance athletes--and the high concentration of shorts display bulging calves on men and women as well as sometimes enormous varicose (from the Latin "varix" meaning "twisted;" caused by decreased elasticity of veins--typically in the legs--, weakening of the valves within those veins, and pooling of blood there that should be flowing to the heart) veins.
~The chatter in the Le Bus that's taking us to Pineview is constant--gulls at the beach picking at and fighting over a dead crab ubiquitous--and it's difficult to pick out any conversation that doesn't somehow rotate around the word "beer," which recalls a commercial for a popular domestic ultra-light beer depicting a man perspiring heavily as he chugs away on his road-bike, backgrounded by images of his other pursuits--hiking, kayaking, swimming, running, partying, climbing, women--that 1) illustrates the mind-numbing variety of out-door activities a single person can engage in, 2) highlights social pressures (expressed through any number of media outlets and social bodies) to maintain an active lifestyle fueled by consumption (which is also a pithy encapsulation of the OR at first glance), and 3) exposes the connection b/n doing things outside and drinking beer--a diuretic, cancer-causing, addictive, and completely delicious and refreshing beverage--, a connection seemingly existent between it (i.e. beer) and pretty much any activity alcohol producers can conceivably exploit (i.e.means every single one).
~As one might expect, the obesity quotient among exhibitors and retailers (and their dogs) probably resides in the single to negative digits.
~Everyone has their own business card (except me) and they all want to give me one.
~If I am unable to discern the use of the molded-polymer item you are exhibiting in a prone state I probably don't need one.
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Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Pot is Bad: Disinformation is Worse
An article posted to the BBC's news Web-site today reviews a recent publication by the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand (MRINz) that notes new-found adverse effects of "cannabis use" on the lungs.
An initial e-mail to the MRINZ and a request to obtain the study has gone unanswered.
According to the BBC's reportage, researchers report that there is damage to numerous lung functions as well as lung composition, i.e. coughing and wheezing, and the reduction of "large airways in the lungs."
It fails, however, to state the extent of the damage.
On the other hand, it explains that pot does not cause the crippling, chronic, and terminal lung degeneration disease emphysema, which, as noted by the US Center for Disease Control in a June '06 press release, killed almost 2.4 million people in America based on estimates made in 2004, the earliest year available from which to draw statistics. That report says that emphysema killed 801 per 100,000 Americans that year.
This is not an insignificant observation. The BBC article (and the MRINZ study by association (until further information reveals otherwise)) makes as if to highlight the similar health-risks posed by tobacco and marijuana use.
The BBC quotes the author of the study as saying that "one joint of cannabis was similar to 2.5 to five tobacco cigarettes in terms of causing airflow obstruction." This statement fails to denote whether they are referencing filtered or unfiltered cigarettes.
This statement is, essentially, the crux of the article, and its reason for inclusion on the BBC's front-page news, and it appears to lay out logical traps derived though assumption.
The severe health damage caused by cigarettes is public knowledge. By drawing analogies and pointing out similarities--though apparently minor--between marijuana and tobacco, the article encourages us to associate the former with the latter, and to make the requisite assumptions of both. Following the logic recommended by the article, one could safely assume that if smoking cigarettes reduces one's life expectancy by 14 years, smoking marijuana should reduce it by 35 to 70 years. A minor review of the available research cataloging the effects of both substances suggests that such an assumption would be foolish to maintain.
The legality and health-risks of cigarettes and tobacco are surprisingly dissimilar. The former is available on the free market and its use has been shown to cause "1 in every 5 deaths in America each year;" the latter, which is essentially legal in only two nations on the planet, has never been shown to increase mortality, and has been documented to be the cause of few, if any respiratory diseases. Tobacco use has been documented as a major cause of numerous cancers, and many respiratory and coronary diseases.
According to the BBC, the MRINZ study notes that the pulmonary damage caused by cannabis use is principally the result of how it is commonly smoked, without the aid of a filter, as opposed to most cigarettes
They said the impact of cannabis was likely to be due to the way in which cannabis joints are smoked - joints do not usually have filters, and they reach higher temperatures with users inhaling more deeply and holding their breath for longer than cigarette smokers.
That suggests that the restructuring of state regulation of marijuana by rewriting or scraping existing restrictions on the cultivation, production, and marketing of it could potentially mitigate at least some of the adverse health effects of smoking it. Relaxation or erasure of those restrictions would conceivably release marijuana into the free-market where it could be effectively and safely produced and marketed with a filter to refine the smoke as it is inhaled.
The article does not mention whether the study included both filtered and filter-less cigarettes.
It is important to note that existing cigarette filter technology can be undermined by a smoker if he/she accidentally or knowingly obstructs the flow of air through the ventilation holes punched through the circumference of the filter's end, thus inhaling smoke less adulterated by exposure to air. That smoke contains more tar and nicotine than would be received if the cigarette were smoked with the ventilation holes (which are more numerous in so-called "light" and "ultra-light" cigarettes) uncovered. Filters have been shown (refer to previous link) to be effective in reducing tar and nicotine when correctly used.
It should also be acknowledged that, whereas filters serve to dilute the nicotene content of tobacco cigarettes, one would assume with some great deal of certainty that they would have the same effect of reducing THC--the active ingredient in marijuana--content. It would also seem reasonable to draw the conclusion that people smoke cannabis principally for the uptake of THC, and would thus be unlikely to pay for and smoke marijuana cigarettes if they were receiving less THC than they would be by rolling their own.
The MRINZ is an independent medical research laboratory in Wellington, NZ. It's efforts are primarily directed at public health concerns, such as alcohol and drug abuse, asthma, and pharmacovigilance (the study of the maintenance of the adverse effects of medicaments).
A follow-up to this post will be made when/if a reply from the MRINZ is received.
